Dignitas

In Splinter the Silence, Val McDermid explores the issue of internet trolling/hate mail/harassment/villification/abuse of women who put their heads above the parapet to speak about discrimination and injustice. In this fictional case, the public figures are apparently hounded to the point of suicide, although the reader knows from the outset that they are actually being murdered, each killing disguised to mimic the suicides of famous feminists. The murderer has his own reasons for objecting to women who step outside their domestic role and tell men what’s right or wrong.

Well, sadly, I know people in real life who would still tether women to the kitchen sink if they could. I have myself come in for criticism for being a woman and daring to voice and defend an opinion; for having ideas above my subservient station. Fortunately, positive responses have far, far outweighed the negative, so it hasn’t been that difficult to maintain perspective, but then, I’m not an A-list celebrity, so such pernicious or malicious activities don’t hit the headlines, the number of critics doesn’t reach stratospheric levels. Nevertheless, I can vouch for the discomfort of being on the receiving end of such unjust vitriol. It’s not as far fetched as you might imagine.

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about the matter of standing up and being accountable, and about all the cases coming to public attention right now that lend themselves to strong column inches. I’ll itemise a few, but please note, I have no privileged access to information on any of them, so the facts I include are as subject to distortion and prejudice as any other media-generated stories.

OK, serious time, folks. And in every case multiply the questions many times over.

Ten days after legally completing his transition from female to male, a transgender man, TT, underwent intrauterine insemination, resulting in a pregnancy. He has now taken his case to the High Court in an effort to be the first to have no ‘mother’ registered on the birth certificate. Hello? ‘Cake’ and ‘eat’ instantly spring to mind. Expensive legal and parliamentary resources are to be deployed to look into the ramifications of the current laws governing fertility treatment.
One British doctor is reported as saying, now that it is medically possible to transplant a womb into biological males, it would be illegal to deny them access to this opportunity to carry a child to birth. What do you think? Would it?
What about the rights of the unborn child?
One author of a letter to the Telegraph outlined the scenario and concluded, ‘The lunatics truly have taken over the asylum.‘ Do you agree? Or is this a case of establishing the deep-seated needs of people who have struggled all their lives with their dysphoria?

Then there’s the issue of rights and dignity and bodily integrity and mental welfare of female athletes with naturally high testosterone levels? Renewed calls have been made for such women to be given drugs to lower their levels before they compete, or for them to be channelled into other categories such as intersex competition.
What about the effect on these sportswomen of the abuse and accusations levelled at them?
Is it a fair playing field?
Other scientists have cast serious doubt on the integrity of the research behind this latest demand; how many people either know of this or have the scientific or mental wherewithal to judge the issue fairly?

Exactly four years ago, on their half-term break, Shamima Begum and two school friends fled this country, aged only 15, to join Isil and become jihadi brides. In those years, Begum has borne three children, two of whom died of illness and malnourishment. She has told the world she doesn’t regret her actions, that she was unfazed by the sight of severed heads, that’s she’s into retaliation, but wants to bring baby number three back to her home country.
We have no way of knowing just how much coercion lies behind her public pronouncements, but her responses to interviewers chill the blood. The government have refused to jeopardise more lives by sending anyone to rescue her, but at first the lawyers told us, she’s a British citizen, she cannot be rendered stateless, so legally speaking, there is no choice; we must have her back. Then a couple of days later we hear that no, the government are not obliged to repatriate her … and indeed the Home Secretary has revoked her British citizenship … she has dual Bangladeshi nationality … the baby has a Dutch father …
What consequences should this girl’s actions have?
Whose rights take precedence?
What kind of a future lies in front of her or her baby son?
Who should assume responsibility?Is it a measure of our own more civilised behaviour that we rise above the terrorists’ creed and show compassion now towards this girl?
What of all the other people who’ve dabbled in terrorism but who now want to return?And a zillion other questions.
No wonder opinion is divided.

Retired accountant, 80-year-old Geoff Whaley, diagnosed with MND two years ago, decided that an agonising and undignified death was not for him; he would go to Dignitas in Switzerland for a controlled end to his life. But his careful planning was threatened days before his proposed departure by the appearance of police at his door, interviewing his wife of 52 years under caution, in response to an anonymous tip-off. It was this unwelcome intrusion, coupled with the laws of this country opposing assisted suicide, not his impending suicide, that engendered fear and anguish in this man, provoking him to protest to the BBC and MPs:‘The law in this country robbed me of control over my death. It forced me to seek solace in Switzerland. Then it sought to punish those attempting to help me get there. The hypocrisy and cruelty of this is astounding.’Put aside for a moment your personal views on assisted dying, and ask, what could possibly have motivated someone to blow the whistle in this way at the Whaley’s eleventh hour? Genuine concern, self-righteousness, extreme religious views, a sense of public duty, malice? Or what?
Should other people’s private scruples be allowed to control the rights of families in such tragic circumstances?

Imagine being born in war-ravaged Yemen, stranded in a hospital in a country where social, political, economic and health care systems have all collapsed, where about half of the 28 million inhabitants are living on the brink of famine. Now add to that the babies being conjoined twins. Their picture appeared in the British press; the Yemeni doctors appealing for help from the UN to get them to Saudi Arabia.
What should our response be?
What is our responsibility in such cases?
What chance did they realistically have?
At least 6,800 civilians have been killed and 10,700 injured in the war, according to UN statistics. Did these two extremely vulnerable boys warrant such an exceptional rescue mission?
In the event they died in their homeland, but the questions remain.

I have opinions on all these issues. You don’t have to listen to me. You are perfectly entitled to disagree with me – fundamentally and even vociferously. But you ought not to shut me up! Especially not in a threatening or damaging way.

Tomorrow the Assisted Dying Bill is back before the House of Commons yet again. I wonder if your views have changed since it was last debated.

It’s an age old question, isn’t it? 500 years before the birth of Christ, Euripides wrote: ‘I hate the men who would prolong their lives / By foods and drinks and charms of magic art / Perverting nature’s course to keep off death / They ought, when they no longer serve the land / To quit this life, and clear the way for youth.’

And here we are, 2600 years later, with an aging population, limited resources and vastly improved medical capability. Globally, the number of over-65s is expected to triple by 2050, with all that that implies. Of course, no politician will ever advocate that those who ‘no longer serve the land’ should choose suicide. But many aged and infirm people would choose death for themselves rather than indignity or slow decline or suffering. I’ve known many such – one just this week. And yet the current law prohibits assisting them towards that end. Is this a safeguard or a shackle?

During the Festival last month I went to a show which dealt with the quandary elderly folk can find themselves in: specifically not wanting to be kept alive, not wanting to be taken into hospital/care, not being listened to. In the drama, by the Jealous Whale Theatre, terminally ill Wendy’s grandson, Edmund, pleads with the authorities to respect her wishes; but the powers that be insist that there are ‘safeguarding’ issues and their hands are tied. In the end Edmund takes matters into his own hands, smothers his gran with a pillow, and then sits quietly waiting for the consequences. Cleverly performed in the intimacy of a ‘Wendy House’, it forced the audience into close proximity with the protagonists and their moral dilemmas. The play resurrected a lot of the old questions for me.

Earlier this year I also read (and reviewed on this blog) ‘I’ll See Myself Out, Thank You‘ Afterwards I went to the internet and looked at videos about people who have made a choice one way or the other. I was staggered by the number available, and had a rather depressing day watching them all, especially the touching scenes of farewell with loved ones. I don’t recommend it!

But I thought I’d give you the links to a selection of them just in case you want to select any to help you think through the arguments for yourself. I apologise for the imbalance; I’d have liked to be even handed, but far more pro assisted death than against seem to commit their views to video.

The last days, hours, minutes of a person’s life before they took the lethal dose, explaining their position and support for assisted suicide.

(PS. Many years ago I was on a special committee with Alison Davies debating whether or not extremely small sick babies should be treated or allowed to die with dignity. We all found it very difficult to argue against Alison because it felt like devaluing her life. She’s still an ardent campaigner and a powerful voice decades later. And I’m still writing about the subject!)

Speaking of age, I want to add my own wee tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II who yesterday became our longest ever reigning monarch. Watching this little old lady still performing her role with dignity, grace and an exemplary sense of duty at the age of 89 is both humbling and inspirational. God bless her.

In 1936 the royal physician, Lord Dawson of Penn injected a lethal mixture of morphine and cocaine directly into the jugular vein of His Majesty King George V. Queen Mary and the about-to-be King Edward VIII were in attendance. The timing of the fatal infusion was chosen so that the announcement of the King’s demise would make the next morning’s Times but be just too late for the less prestigious evening press.

Four monarchs on, the debate as to the rights and wrongs of assisted dying is a hot topic, and legally what Lord Dawson did would be inadmissible today.

I’ve lost track of the number of books and articles I’ve read on the subject, how many debates and seminars I’ve listened to, how many times I’ve rehearsed the arguments myself. But I can say that a new book out this year, beguilingly titled, I’ll See Myself Out, Thank You, is a very useful addition to the existing collection – hence I return to the subject yet again in this blog!

It brings together short but relevant contributions from a range of writers: seriously disabled and terminally ill people who plan to take their own lives when the time is right for them, spouses of people who have already done so, psychiatrists who’re asked to assess their mental competence, people who work for Dignitas in Switzerland, those who have accompanied patients to Dignitas, relatives of people who’ve actually helped someone to die illegally in this country, peers of the realm who’ve voted on the issue, men of the cloth, humanists, ethicists, philosophers, journalists, novelists, playwrights, even a stand-up comic – an impressive list. All with voices worth listening to.

It’s a very readable book. The vivid stories, the personal experiences, the credentials of the authors, bring the issues to life and breathe authenticity into their measured and thoughtful viewpoints. Most of the arguments I’ve heard many times before, many of the contributors I know personally. However, I personally found three sections particularly thought-provoking.

In Chapter 4, psychiatrist, Dr Colin Brewer, gives some fascinating vignettes of people whom he was asked to assess for assisted suicide. Made me ask: what would I have made of each of these cases?

The first section in Chapter 6 on Religion and Philosophy by Emeritus Professor of Theology, Rev. Dr Paul Badham (whom I’ve never met), gives a wholesome and refreshing look at ‘The Christian Case‘. All too often we hear a polarised and unbalanced religious perspective from a minority group or an unrepresentative figurehead; it’s good to have a more tolerant and compassionate approach which fits with a God I’d want to trust and believe in.

And then there’s the section in Chapter 9 by a documentary maker, telling the story of art lecturer Glenn Scott‘s* suicide when he was in the last stages of Motor Neurone Disease. It’s a most moving account, reminiscent of my own story of Adam O’Neil’s dying in Right to Die. (*The link with Glenn’s name takes you to the video of his last tape.) I actually spent a whole rather miserable day looking at similar videos on YouTube and was amazed at the number out there.

Now, eight decades on since the death of King George V, when society is becoming overloaded with ailing elderly folk, when more and more people are wanting to ‘add life to their years – not years to their life‘, when parliament is still failing to resolve the legal paradoxes and quagmires, when doctors are hamstrung by ‘pervasive, post-Shipman paranoia’, when patients and relatives face increasingly intolerable situations, it behoves us all to think carefully, rationally, about where we personally stand on this issue, and what kind of a society we want for our children and grandchildren. In my opinion, this book helps one to do exactly that. (As do those videos.)

She was a political activist from her teen years. But Debbie Purdy rose to fame when from her wheelchair she pleaded for – and won – clarity on assisted dying in 2009. Her memorable comment: “Being allowed to die would help me to live” summed up her thinking. She loved life, even with its significant difficulties, but the current law was leading her towards deliberately ending that life sooner than she would choose. Sad then that in reality, her end was a far cry from the dignified autonomous finale that she fought for in the courts.

She actually died on 23 December, before my last two posts went out, but it didn’t seem an appropriate note for Christmas time or Hogmanay, so I postponed it till today.

Debbie was only 31 when she was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. 31. She was 51 when she eventually died. 20 years of living with a severely disabling painful disease – outlined in her 2010 autobiography, It’s Not Because I Want to Die. When she appeared before journalists and the public she made no secret of her personal wish to go to Switzerland to die when life became unbearable; all she wanted was assurance that her Cuban husband, Omar Puente, (black, foreign and poor, so, she feared, particularly vulnerable) would not be prosecuted if he assisted her to get there. Her jubilant face when the House of Lords gave that reassurance lives in the memory. Assisted dying wasn’t yet legal but she could now live her life to the full and she was in no hurry to go.

But, when that point of unbearable suffering came, she could not afford the journey to Switzerland. Instead she went into a hospice, where she ended her life peacefully … no, starved herself to death. It took a whole year! How can this possibly be right? Even a few days before her death she was filmed saying if a cure became available she would be first in the queue for it, such was her wish to live. But not at all costs:“It’s not a matter of wanting to end my life. It’s a matter of not wanting my life to be this.” Harrowing to see her emaciated frame, hear her reluctance, feel her fear – you can watch it here if you can bear to. I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her relatives and friends, and indeed those caring for her, to watch her deteriorate in this horrible way. Nor the courage and determination on her part to stick to her resolve for that long.

Advocates of a change in the law have capitalised on this story, drawing attention to statistics which seem to point inexorably in their minds to change: 60-70% of the public want it; legal and ethical opinion has swung in favour of it; two terminally ill people a month go to Switzerland to end their lives; ten times that number kill themselves secretly at home; to name but a few figures. It’s only religious zealots and medical authoritarianism that are holding us back, they claim; surely the best tribute to this indomitable campaigner would be to legalise assisted dying.

I’ve stated my own opinion elsewhere on this blog; I won’t rehearse it again here. Suffice to say I have my own reservations, my own tentative solution. But the very fact that, in this 21st century, in our affluent and democratic country, after two decades of mental and physical agony, a young woman took a year to die from starvation, must surely give every one of us pause for thought. What’s your definition of torture?

If not an assisted dying bill, what? In a decent civilised society we cannot stand back and allow such scenarios to be reenacted.

D’you remember the BBC film of this name, A Short Stay in Switzerland, a dramatisation of the last days of Dr Anne Turner who developed an incurable degenerative disorder (PSP)? She made the front pages of the papers with her letters to friends and relations to say, ‘By the time you read this I will be dead‘. In January 2006 she travelled to Dignitas to end her life, the day before her 67th birthday, while she was still able to move and voluntarily take the lethal medication. And a report this week says that almost a quarter of terminally ill people who avail themselves of the suicide clinic’s services are from Britain (second only to Germany).

Well, I’m grateful to be able to report that my own short stay was of a quite different order. I had eight days to revel in the spectacular scenery, travel on the world famous panoramic trains, listen to the enchanting melody of cow bells in the mountains, and inhale the pure Swiss air, with no sinister intent. All I had to do was soak up the beauty and recharge the batteries. Wonderful.

I did my best not to let the Dignitas issue cast a shadow over my holiday, but of course, books featured. After all, this was real Heidi country, Johanna Spyri was born, lived and wrote in and around the rural area of Hirzel and Zurich, and used Graubünden for the setting of her books – all places I visited. Although Spyri struggled to find a publisher initially, the two Heidi stories went on to become by far the most popular works of Swiss literature: they’ve been translated from German into 50 languages, filmed more than a dozen times, and over 50 million copies have been sold world wide. So evocative were they of the Swiss Alps that the real locations exactly conformed to my childhood mental images.

Switzerland is also the stuff of the Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent-Dyer, another big part of my growing up. Stories of schoolgirls who spoke three languages fluently, whose lives were overshadowed by the sanitorium, and who seemed to grow up to have lots of children also destined for the Chalet School. I collected most of the hardbacks (secondhand) in my youth, and passed them on to my daughter, who recently completed the set (58 books), paying a good deal more for rare copies than I ever did! The full complement are destined for the next generation. What a lovely legacy. I might even read them again myself some time – this time in the correct order! – and fill in all the gaps.

Then two years ago MSP Margo Macdonald waged her passionate campaign to get assisted dying accepted in Scotland. I watched her in action, I listened to her in the flesh, and I honestly thought her End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill would get somewhere, given the publicity she generated and her own personal struggle with Parkinson’s Disease. But no. I was wrong again. It was thrown out.

Now this month Lord Falconer has published his report on behalf of the Independent Commission on Assisted Dying (set up and partly funded by Sir Terry Pratchett). The story is similar. They recognised the distressing situations people find themselves in under the present system, the anxiety it causes healthcare providers, and the challenging burden it represents for the police and prosecutors, and found the present law both ‘inadequate‘ and ‘incoherent‘. They looked for a solution for people with the mental capacity to request assistance and a clear sustained wish to die.

Once again practices in other countries that permit varying levels of assisted death came under scrutiny. The Commission ‘did not like much of what they saw.‘ In Switzerland, the Dignitas clinic is an alien environment where patients are far away from loved ones. In Oregon, patients must take 90 pills, often without a doctor present. In the Netherlands, even teenagers and people with mental illness are helped to die. The Commission deemed all these practices undesirable for Britons.

But in any case, irrespective of the efficacy of practices elsewhere, in reality the opportunity to go abroad for death is really only available to the wealthy. Furthermore, because of the threat of legal action against relatives who assist them, many are forced to take their own lives early while they are still physically able to do so. So, nothing new; but the painful truths revisited and reiterated.

Like their predecessors, the Commission came to the conclusion that a change is overdue. GPs should be able to prescribe lethal doses of medication for dying people to take themselves, they said.

Lord Falconer’s recommendations though, are much narrower that Margo Macdonald’s. They would only apply to people with less than a year to live, who are capable of drinking the medication unaided. They do not include those who are suffering unbearably but for whom death is not imminent. Neither Margo herself, nor the redoubtable right-to-die campaigner Debbie Purdy who has MS, would qualify. After all they’ve done to open up the debate and clarify the law! A retrograde step surely, not to cater for the people in greatest need of help. Because in reality, terminally ill patients close to death are often helped subtly and carefully and lovingly to have a good death. It’s the ones with lingering declines because of conditions that rob them of power and control and dignity inch by degrading inch that we need to worry about most.

In fairness, this latest august committee conceded that there are dangers in what they recommend and extreme caution is needed. Pressure might be exerted on vulnerable people to end their lives – either from within themselves or from family members. Hence, in their scheme of things, disabled people, or those with depression or dementia, would be ineligible for assistance.

Or maybe they felt that a staged approach is advisable. Start small. Test the water. It’s conceivable. But could backfire.

The next step would be to discuss their report in parliament. But it will inevitably face stiff opposition. Politicians have proved themselves reluctant to back this particular hot potato. Vocal religious leaders are against the taking of life – full stop, and few politicians will risk alienating them. And many in the medical profession are reluctant to publicly support something which appears to fly in the face of their avowed duty and intent to save life and do no harm, although, if you read the evidence to the Commission you’ll see that a considerable number of eminent doctors do privately support a change in the law.

Nevertheless the report places much of the burden for implementing change on doctors. They are the ones who must screen eligible patients, tell them about possible alternative treatments, deliver the lethal prescription, be present during the final moments, cooperate with the police, and report to a monitoring service. Burdensome indeed. Especially if you have personal reservations. And many doctors fear that allying themselves with such a death service would compromise their relationship with their other patients.

But identifying any category of person to take this role presents me with my personal biggest dilemma. It’s easy enough for those who aren’t medically trained to insist, ‘Oh yes, somebody should help these people to die.’ But would they be prepared to administer that fatal dose? To live with the knowledge that their action had killed a fellow human being? Me, I feel sick if I accidentally step on a snail! I couldn’t even finish off an almost-dead rabbit left behind by a hit-and-run driver. Squeamishness personified, me. Who am I to say, ‘Yes, we need this change, but you do it, not me’ ? That’s where all my carefully worked through logical reasoning breaks down.

This time I haven’t spoken to Lord Falconer in person, but if I had to declare my opinion as to the future of this latest attempt to offer assistance with dying in the circumstances outlined, I would rate it unlikely to succeed. Especially given the accusations flying around of bias and prejudice in this particular committee. And the problem of knowing who has less than a year to live. And the expertise required to assess people with a terminal illness for anxiety and depression – could GPs do it? And the time necessary to establish a sustained and genuine wish for death.

However, talking about these controversial and emotive issues that involve unbearable suffering and mental anguish, has to be better than sweeping them under the carpet. So if it keeps the issues alive it will have served a function. And in the meantime, let’s just hope and pray that those who need it get excellent palliative care from staff who support the concept of a pain-free dignified death.

Curious really, Right to Die came out in 2008 but is just as topical in 2012. The reverse of what I expected when I wrote it.

If you are of a sensitive disposition and a member of the female persuasion you might choose to look away NOW – you can come in again at the asterisk below.

Ahah! Did you think I was going to talk about the BBC documentary on assisted suicide? Sir Terry Pratchett investigating the experience of the Dignitas option in Switzerland? Yes, I know it’s my kind of subject, but it seems to be being done to death (sorry!) elsewhere, so I’m not. Besides I feel too disturbed about what I saw to write about it at the moment.

No, today I’m turning my beady eye onto a different controversy. Women: their status, their potential, and how they’re treated.

I didn’t go to the Hay Festival this year, but I did follow reports of it. So I heard about VS Naipaul (winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Literature) insulting women big time. None of them, past or present, could possibly be as great as he is, he declared. Full stop. (He even singled out Jane Austen as way beneath him. Jane Austen!!)

Of course, as you probably know, his history is littered with offended people. Why, his own philosophy includes: ‘If a writer doesn’t generate hostility, he is dead’.

But this time his boasting about his own achievements and his relegation of all women writers as doomed to inferiority by their ‘sentimental’ attitudes and ‘narrow view of life’, hit the raw nerves of way over half the population. He even compounded his sweeping assertion with this partial explanation: ‘And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too‘. Hello?!!

OK, you might say, what would you expect from someone whose private life is a study in misogyny and discrimination? Well, I for one would prefer to see great talent and acclaim generating humility and gratitude and deference to the success of others. Not arrogance, unwholesome pride and cruelty. End of rant.

*(Those females of a sensitive disposition may re-enter the fray here.)

So I turned with relief to a story of the suppression of women which sets a context of triumph over evil and the power of love.

‘For almost three decades now, the Afghan refugee crisis has been one of the most severe around the globe. War, hunger, anarchy, and oppression forced millions of people to abandon their homes and flee Afghanistan to settle in neighboring Pakistan and Iran. At the height of the exodus, as many as eight million Afghans were living abroad as refugees.’ So says Khaled Hosseini in the afterword to his novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and became US goodwill envoy to the UN Refugee Agency, so he speaks with both knowledge and sincerity. That authenticity shines through the story of the illegitimate Mariam, the ill-fated childhood sweethearts Laila and Tariq, the troubled children, Aziza and Zalmai. As does the author’s empathy and humanity.

But it’s the quiet depiction of abject poverty, of domestic brutality and female suppression, of sacrificial marriage between young teenagers and much older men, that makes this book the moving and sensitive tale it is. We in the UK read of honour killing with horror in our hearts, but Hosseini conveys quite masterfully the essence of a culture that permits such acts. We see how it happens that wives submit to constant abuse, husbands lock their wives out of sight, fathers kill or reject their daughters, and laws condone such discrimination.

Hosseini’s understated prose is eloquent in its simplicity.

Laila marvels that ‘… every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet … people find a way to survive, to go on.’

One of the judges in the trial of Mariam years later says, ‘God has made us differently, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can. Western doctors and their science have proved this. This is why we require only one male witness and two female ones.’

Naipaul would fit right in here, wouldn’t he?

As the cover says: ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns is an unforgettable portrait of a wounded country and a deeply moving story of family and friendship. It is a beautiful, heart-wrenching story of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond and an indestructible love.’ Indeed it is.

And all the reader’s sympathies are with the downtrodden women. I salute Hosseini as a true master-storyteller. As for self-acclaimed Naipaul, well, his ranting and posturing say much more about him than about women.

The bells rang, the pipes skirled, 80,000 people partied in the streets of Edinburgh to the thunder and shimmer of thousands of pounds worth of fireworks … and yes, it is worth saying, because the official celebrations have been cancelled before, and the jolly old weather certainly threatened to be agin us this time.

Six years ago we took a party of guests to our usual vantage point shortly before midnight and … waited … and waited … and well, nothing happened. Apparently there were ‘safety concerns’. In our embarrassment and frustration we instantly thought Thou-shalt-not-play-conkers-without-safety-helmet-plus-padded-gloves-plus-visors writ large. But nobody wants a fatality for the sake of a mere pyrotechnical spectacular, and we learned later it was something to do with a dodgy roof and the strength of the wind. At least that was the official version.

But it’s not just dynamite that has ignited the change to a new year. The bells have been ringing for other major shifts close to my heart. Indeed the news during this past seven days has been jammed full of my kind of subjects. In no particular order (as they say on ‘talent’ shows) …

Organ donation included on driving licence applications
From July drivers applying for a licence will be asked to indicate which of the following applies to them:
• Yes, I would like to register on the NHS Organ Donor Register
• I do not want to answer this question now
• I am already registered on the NHS Organ Donor Register.
It’s an official step towards increasing the pool of donors. Around 90% of people favour donation but only 27% are registered donors. And given that about 1,000 Britons die each year for want of an organ, and thousands more wait an indecently long time for one, we need to do something. Maybe there should have been one more question:
• Would you be prepared to receive a donated organ for yourself or someone you love?
The novel I’m writing just now is about organ donation so I can get quite fired up on the subject.

Sir Elton John has become a dad
Put aside for a moment any qualms about the 63-year old temper-tantrum-on-short-legs with a £290,000 flower habit as a role model, and disregard the rumours about payment to ensure the birth happened on 25th December as the ultimate Christmas present, and think instead of the whole picture of a financial arrangement between an unknown surrogate mother in California and an aging, overweight, homosexual with dubious priorities. And spare a thought for the resultant offspring: Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John.
Admittedly the pop star did try recently to adopt an HIV-positive toddler from a Ukrainian orphanage, but he was denied on the grounds of his age, and the fact that his civil partnership with David Furnish was not recognised. So what isn’t good enough for an abandoned Ukrainian is suddenly acceptable for Zachary? Hello? How many tribunals in this country would grant permission for such an arrangement without the pressure of fame and fortune, I wonder? OK, it did become legal in April here in the UK for two men to have a child by a surrogate and to have both their names on the birth certificate. But we aren’t talking about your average ordinary man here. Children are not commodities. Nor are they fashion accessories.
Surrogacy was the subject of my 2005 novel, Double Trouble.

A nine-year old becomes a bone marrow donor
Robert Sherwood is only nine. His brother Edward is just five. But Edward has aplastic anaemia; his bone marrow fails to produce sufficient new blood cells. Robert’s donation has the potential to save his brother’s life. But … should he have been subjected to this procedure before the age of informed consent? Does the end justify the means? Should he be permitted to say no?
It’s the bread and butter of my working life!

Another British person has ended his life in Switzerland
Andrew Colgan was only 42 (not much older than my son) but he’d suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for ten years and his condition had markedly worsened recently. He died in that now infamous Dignitas room in Zurich. My own feeling is of immense sadness that this young man had been desperate enough to go abroad for a solution to his terrible dilemma.
I really agonised over these questions for Right to Die; I’m still struggling with them three years after publication.

Volunteers keep libraries open
A new report has revealed that libraries in England are increasingly being staffed by volunteers, to prevent closure under cost-cutting exercises. And this at a time when it ought surely be a priority to make books available to those struggling to find employment or to make ends meet. Books can change lives. Penny-pinching in this area is surely stealing vital resources from the future.
Hundreds of people only read my books as library copies. I want them to continue to have this opportunity. It represents something much more exciting than sales figures.

Bishops defend the rights of Christians
Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, has urged the prime minister to review the laws which discriminate against Christians in our supposedly-Christian country. And the Bishop of Winchester has reinforced this message. We’ve all heard about the airline worker denied the right to wear a crucifix; the couple denied the opportunity to foster children because of their religious scruples; and the bed-and-breakfast proprietors who won’t take same-sex couples in double rooms in their guesthouse. The law does seem to have sided against ordinary Christians following their consciences.
Religion is closely interwoven with law and ethics and this subject too is a matter of ongoing interest to me.

There was something too about managing Alzheimer’s more cost effectively but I can’t seem to find that. No, it’s NOT a joke about dementia: I genuinely can’t. I looked and in the search found this site which might be comforting for those people struggling alongside this disease. But in the absence of a link to the news item I was looking for, I didn’t want to ignore another topic that I’ve delved into in depth for one of my novels, Remember Remember, because of course, it leapt out of the page at me.

So you see, just in a few days I’ve had my belief that people do care about ethical dilemmas reinforced over and over again. A great spur to another year of writing.